We trudged out into the snow, nearly a quarter-inch deep. We did it fast. Like we were running away. Not sure what to expect. What was Bruiser going to do? Was he going to come after us with the gun once he did whatever he had to do to Dermoody and Cap'n Joe? It didn't look like it. The second we left it was like we were never there. Bruiser was talking to them, those statues, moving his mouth, strutting as he picked up each shell that Jimmy had kicked. I could only look behind me as we made our way across the quad, at Bruiser as he put the shells in the shotgun and dipped his shoulder, threw his head back, laughed. I was a water skier cruising on the wake of Jimmy's speedboat. I didn't even turn around when I heard fighting in front of me. I couldn't look away from the scene in the cafeteria.
Jimmy punched throats. Jimmy kicked ribs. I could hear it. I could see the bodies fall past me like broken mannequins failing miserably at making decent snow angels. Jimmy froze them: ice sculptures. But I still couldn't tear my eyes away from the rectangular glass entryway. In the dark, it looked like a fluorescent strip of light boxes, all lined up in a row, pouring yellow out the cafeteria entrance and into the quad around me and illuminating the falling snow. Bruiser wiped the stock of the gun, then the barrel, then the trigger with his shirt. He was getting smaller as I got farther away. The whole scene was. I couldn't tell if he was smiling anymore.
I barely felt the snow on my skin, on my hair, melting and joining my sweat. The thought of running away, running home, only briefly occurred to me as the shrinking Bruiser twisted the gun into Dermoody's hand and aimed it right at Cap'n Joe. Then POW. Even through two barriers of bulletproof glass and some twenty yards or more of distance, I could hear it like a muffled sonic boom: Cap'n Joe went over on a right angle, a tipped-over nutcracker.
Bruiser wasted no time pointing the shotgun up, maneuvering it into Dermoody's mouth, still smoking, had to be. I winced, imagining a burning hot gun barrel in my mouth, blistering my lips immediately. It would sink into my gums like that hot knife and that butter. Some things had to be seen all the way through to the end. That was my thought when tiny Bruiser must've pushed his finger into tiny Dermoody's finger and pulled the tiny trigger that I couldn't even see anymore, just had to imagine was there, and then Dermoody lost the top part of his head and then rocked but just kind of stayed standing up like an inflatable bop bag. The gun dropped to the floor beside him. Then Bruiser sat down on the bench of one of the tables.
It was like watching a play. I expected the bright yellow rectangle of lights across the quad to go out, click off, or fade down so I could be a regular audience member and clap and thank god that the tour-de-fuckin'-force was over and I could go home and purposely not think about the shit I saw. But when I heard the sound of Jimmy throwing open the door to the theater building, heard metal slam hard against brick, I knew we still had one more act.